


Grim Reality

by Amethyst97Skye



Series: Harry Potter One-Shots [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Doppelganger, F/M, Marauders' Era, Prophetic Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8897491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethyst97Skye/pseuds/Amethyst97Skye
Summary: What would you do if you met The Grim?





	1. James Potter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late one night, in the light of the full moon, a sixteen-year-old James Potter meets the Grim. It goes as well as one might expect.

There was something in the Forest, something weaving in-between the trees like a snake, here one second and gone the next. James thought it was Sirius, trying to sneak up on him. That was what were brothers for, right? He watched, waiting patiently, ready to charge at a moment's notice as it stalked closer, using the seemingly endless pockets of shadows as an invisibility cloak.

The tale-tell howl of a Werewolf drew his attention, and he was surprised to see Padfoot wrestling, playfully, with Moony in the splattered rays of moonlight that filtered through the thick canopy above. Wormtail had found a sturdy branch, likely knocked down by a thrashing Threstral in search of a late night snack, and he was watching with rapt attention, before hiding behind a pair of chubby paws when either one of the wrestlers got in a particularly hard blow.

A gust of hot air hit the back of his neck, and Prongs whirled round, face-to-face with a creature unlike any he had seen. His sight was dominated by a mass of black fur, glistening ivory white fangs several inches long, and a pair of galleon-gold eyes. The beast was as tall as him, minus the antlers, its body slender but powerful, a predator unmatched in speed and strength.

But it was the eyes that drew James in, and he found himself comparing them to Padfoot's cloudy silver sockets; they could be intimidating, at times, but they had never felt even momentarily bewitching, nor had they ever filled his heart with paralysing fear. He did not dare to move, barely breathing. His only though was that it _knew_. Whatever it was, it knew. It knew he was not a young stag out for a little moonlit stroll. It knew he was human.

It had crept closer, still, standing not a yard away, staring at him - into him - but James could not, for the life of him, remember seeing it move. Its eyes, pools of liquid gold, burned him, branding his mind, but he could not scream. He wanted to run. His feet would not respond. He wanted to look away, shut his eyes, but he was transfixed.

All around him, the Forbidden Forest was melting, transforming: the black trees joined together to form houses; the earth rose to create a hand-built cobblestone wall, and a large church with a skeleton-thin Gothic gate, matching fence and a chillingly expansive graveyard emerged from the darkness. James was standing in the middle of the street, staring down the empty road; the place was unrecognisable, and yet, he could not shake the feeling that he had been here before, that this little village was of monumental significance to him... somehow.

It could have been just seconds, but an eternity seemed to pass before a figure appeared out of nowhere, seemingly emerging from the hedgerow at the back of the church. James was hit with wave after wave of the darkest magic he had ever felt, and he instinctively ducked down behind the wall of the abandoned leaf covered yard in which he stood. He peeked over the stone and watched the figure float - no, _fly_ \- up and over the locked graveyard gate, the wizard’s billowing black robes submerging his face in shadow.

He gave no inclination of having spotted James, and continued on down the street as if he had all the time in the world. When the wizard stopped at the cottage at the very end and ventured into the yard, James was dragged through walls, doors and windows before he came to a sudden stop in a dark, sparsely decorated living room. From an adjoining room, James heard a door creak open, and from upstairs he heard familiar voices.

They were drowned out by pounding footsteps and James watched himself – several years his senior – descend the stairs, wand in hand, stubbornly blocking all access to the rooms above. The robed wizard stood in the doorway between the kitchen-cum-dining room and the living room. James could see his hands now, and they looked a cold marbled grey, the wand he held almost cream in comparison.

“Voldemort,” the elder James greeted, both his hand and voice steady.

James’ legs buckled and he fell to the floor as Voldemort, the darkest wizard of the modern age, removed his hood to proudly display his monstrous deformities, from the snake-like slit for a nose to the dead, blood red eyes that seemed to burn his very soul.

_What am I seeing? How is this possible?_

“I should have known,” James’ double exclaimed, sounding mournfully disappointed.

_What should I know? What don’t I know? What am I missing?_

“Yes, you should,” Voldemort agreed, his voice a cold, satisfied hiss. “It’s a shame, really. You could have been invaluable to me.”

“I will _never_ join you! I would rather die!”

“That,” Voldemort said, “can be arranged!”

James only caught the first clash of spells, his own bright red Stunner and Voldemort’s even brighter green Killing Curse exploding upon impact. He could feel the heat of his own determination, and a miasma of consuming cold worthy of a Dementor emanating from Voldemort. James watched the picture frames fall and shatter, the couch catch fire, and the banister break beyond repair when his twin was blasted back towards the stairs.

Somewhere above, there was a child crying, wailing, but they were silenced when the windows were shattered and James watched himself fall, his skin devoid of colour, limbs lifeless and eyes unseeing. He was dead. Voldemort had killed him. With a lazy wave, his body was tossed aside, leaving Voldemort free to ascend the stairs, but not before a marbled grey-white foot crushed his wand. The child was crying again.

James had to save them, mother and child both – he had heard her shouts, as well – but he could not bring himself to tear his eyes away from his frozen, still warm corpse. The woman – his wife? – was pleading, begging, and then she was screaming and James was screaming with her.

“ _LILY!_ ”

James was on his feet, running as fast as his legs would carrying him, but as he turned the corner he found himself stranded in darkness. His eyes were forcibly opened, only for him to see that the forest had returned and he was lying on his back, staring up at the full moon. Someone was talking to him, shaking him, but James did not care. He had failed. Lily was dead. His child - _their child_ \- was dead. The world had lost all meaning.


	2. Severus Snape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a sixteen-year-old Severus Snape goes poking around the Whomping Willow, he finds far more than he bargained for.

It stood over him, but all Severus could see was its impossibly bright gold eyes; paralysed as he was, Severus watched them change. From Galleon gold to Lily green and, finally, to a deep blood, reptilian red. The walls he had built around his mind were not so much knocked down as a door was opened, one he had thought to have been well hidden, and Severus was dragged into a memory that was and was not his own.

He was standing in a seedy little tavern, the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade if he was not mistaken, and he could hear voices coming from the top of a long, narrow staircase. Severus quickly recognised the first as Dumbledore’s, but the second was far darker and sounded entirely inhuman, gasping on about how the ' _seventh month will die_ '.

As he approached the top, Severus noticed there was already someone eavesdropping, but before he could so much as think of his next move, someone was rapidly ascending the stairs.

“What are _you_ doing?” demanded a heavily grey haired and bearded man.

The man – correction, the boy – atop the stairs was seized violently, dragged down the stairs and through the door before he was thrown out onto the ice slick cobblestone road. Severus was forced to follow, blitzing through tables, windows and walls to keep up with the elderly wizard. The boy stood and his hood fell to reveal Severus’ own face.

“Aberforth!” Dumbledore called, and then the Headmaster was before him.

Two men, not unlike twins, stood side by side; Severus’ own twin took one look at them and Disapparated in a cloud of black smoke, the vision lingering long enough for Severus to catch sight of a tattoo of a snake and skull branded across the length of his left forearm. He yanked up his own sleeve to see no such mark, but his skin prickled, as if in anticipation, and it instantly became the very last thing Severus wanted.

Hogsmeade and the two Dumbledores were torn from sight and, as the world swirled, Severus took in the flashes of death, despair and destruction that seemed to descend over the world like a blanket of snow, suffocatingly cold, threatening to choke the foolish, the brave and the ill-prepared innocent.

Suddenly, Severus was standing behind an apparition of himself, in a clearing on a cliff with an endless forest to his right, Hogwarts looming in the distance ahead, and a sheer drop into a strangely silent sea to his left. Dumbledore was standing in front of him, having seemingly just turned away in a bout of uncharacteristic anger and frustration.

“The prophecy did not speak of a woman, Severus,” Dumbledore denied. He looked as if he had aged ten years in the span of a few short hours. “It spoke of a boy,” he continued, “born at the end of July.”

The inhuman voice gasping out ‘ _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…’_ popped unbidden into Severus’ mind.

“Yes, but he thinks it’s _her_ son!” the older Severus stressed. “I beg you,” he pleaded. “Hide her. Hide them _all_.”

“And what would you give me in return, Severus?”

All the life drained out of him as he declared, from the bottom of his heart, “Anything.”

A flash of lightning, a clap of thunder and Severus was standing in the remains of a house. He had time enough only to stop and stare at a body that looked suspiciously like James Potter when he heard feet running. It was his future self, he decided, momentarily dejected that he had not been the one to kill Potter. He was distracted by his apparition's pale, paler than ever before, appearance and how he took the stairs at a jagged run.

Severus followed, casting his eyes about the ruin until he walked through his own body. The feeling was sickeningly cold. He turned back, found he had fallen to his knees, but upon casting his eyes in the direction of his elder, Severus dearly wished he had not. He fell and watched himself crawl, his pride forgotten, across the floor to cradle Lily Evans’ dead body in his arms. His left arm was on fire, but it was because of a different pain that he was crying.

Severus Snape never cried.


End file.
